Paul Kemp: Shadowbred

"Stop! Leave me and I will give you what you need to defeat the Shadovar, Erevis. The whole power of the Source channeled into one weapon. Here. Now."

Magadon and the Source flared and pulsed rapidly.

Power went into Weaveshear. The blade vibrated in Cale's hand. Shadows poured from it, darker than before, and spiraled around them. With so much power diverted from the mythallar to Cale's blade, Sakkors began to slowly descend.

Cale watched Rivalen and the two other Shadovar emerge fully from the darkness, their glowing eyes wide as their city started to lower back into the sea.

"Your blade," Magadon said, his voice far away. "It will absorb even their shadow magic spells. Cut them down, Erevis. The power of an entire city is in your hand. Just leave me. You are my friend. Leave me."

Cale hesitated, tempted. Magadon grinned, nodded, his eyes pulsing in time with the Source.

Free us! Magadon screamed in Cale's head. He is almost gone!

Rivalen pulled a thin black blade from the scabbard at his belt. The pommel, inset with an amethyst, was tinged with purple light.

"Give me the power of the Source, Magadon," Rivalen said.

Magadon laughed. "No. I gave it to him. I am free of you."

Rivalen's eyes widened and all three shades began to incant.

"Pull him loose," Riven said to Cale.

"No. You are my friend," Magadon said again. "Leave me."

"I am your friend," Cale said. "That's why I can't leave you."

Cale slashed the exposed veins hanging between Magadon and the Source.

Magadon screamed and collapsed. The sinewy cords spat sparks of red energy and squirmed back into the crystal.

Rivalen's companion fired a blistering beam of green energy that hit Cale in the chest. Cale's flesh repelled the magic and it dissipated harmlessly.

"I will return for you," Cale said to Rivalen, and pointed the charged Weaveshear at him.

"We will be here," Rivalen said.

Cale imagined the Wayrock in his mind. His mind was cloudy, the image faint. He held onto it as best he could, wrapped Magadon and Riven in his darkness, and stepped through the shadows.

When the darkness parted, they were not on the Wayrock. They were sitting atop a hillock of ash-covered ice, under a steel gray sky, overlooking an icy plain dotted with pits of hellfire. The souls of the damned squirmed in the pits, screaming their agony into the sky. The smell of brimstone polluted the freezing air. A frigid breeze stirred up a cloud of ash and ice and carried with it the stink of a charnel house.

"Welcome to Cania," said a voice.

Mephistopheles's voice.

Shadows bled from Cale's skin. A trickle of blood leaked from his ears.

Magadon began to laugh.